Today's commercial and consumer dough products are designed to accommodate consumer preferences in terms of convenience of use, storage stability, and organoleptic properties such as taste, texture, aroma, and color. One popular type of consumer dough product is the class of refrigerator-stable, chemically-leavened, non-developed dough products, a single example being refrigerated soda biscuits. These dough products are leavened substantially by the action of chemical leavening agents, as opposed to yeast, and they can be packaged to be stable over certain periods of time at refrigerated conditions.
Chemically-leavened, non-developed doughs contain chemical leavening agents in combination with typical dough ingredients such as flour, water, fat (e.g., solid fat or a liquid oil), and optional flavorants (e.g., salt or sweeteners) or other additives, which are combined to form a dough mass. As opposed to yeast-leavened doughs, a chemically-leavened dough is not leavened by the action of yeast. Instead, a chemically-leavened dough is leavened by the reaction between chemical leavening agents that, when in contact, produce a leavening gas such as carbon dioxide. This chemical reaction, and the resultant leavening of the dough, can occur at various times, such as during preparation of a dough, during refrigerated storage, or during baking. As opposed to yeast-leavened doughs, chemically-leavened doughs do not typically require a time-consuming “proofing” step before cooking, during which a dough is rested to allow yeast to metabolize. As such, a chemically-leavened dough composition can offer improved convenience compared to yeast-leavened dough compositions.
As noted above, consumers also appreciate the convenience of refrigerator-stable dough compositions, e.g., because of the convenience of allowing a refrigerated dough to be prepared, stored, and used at a convenient time. Refrigerated doughs should desirably produce a cooked dough product having properties comparable to cooked doughs prepared without an extended period of refrigerated storage, such as desired taste, aroma, texture, leavening properties, and color (e.g., surface browning). In practice, however, it can be a challenge to produce doughs that can be refrigerated for extended periods, and then cooked to qualities that are identical to doughs that have not been stored at refrigerated conditions. Chemically-leavened doughs that have been refrigerated for an amount of time (e.g., as little as two weeks) may exhibit undesired effects such as one or more of: a substantial, undesirable change in density (e.g., excessive leavening due to premature reaction between chemical leavening agents); discoloration of the stored and uncooked dough; diminished organoleptic properties of the cooked dough such as taste, texture, aroma, color etc.; reduced leavening properties during cooking; etc. Consequently, there exists an ongoing need for chemically-leavened refrigerated dough products that exhibit desired uncooked and cooked properties, during and after refrigerated storage.